Tessa groaned when I nudged her awake.
“Turn off the lights.” She wrapped a pillow around her head.
“The lights are off. That’s the sun.”
“Well, turn off the sun.”
“Tessa, I need you to get up. It’s important.”
“Why?”
“Because something was found, some evidence, and I have to follow up on it and then get to a briefing.”
She moaned. “I don’t want to sit around lobbies all day while you meet with people. I’ll be fine here. Paul’s not gonna come by, his lawyers would never let him. Just leave me a gun or something.”
“I’m not leaving you a gun. I’m going to drop you off with Mrs. Hawkins.”
“Where?”
“Where what?”
Finally, she unpeeled the pillow and looked at me. “Where are you dropping me off? Last time she took me shopping.”
A slight pause. “She did say something about the mall, but it’s just for-”
“You know how I feel about shopping,” she complained.
“Like I feel about briefings.”
“Worse.” With every moment she sounded more lucid, and I could tell it was annoying her. “Way worse.”
“It’ll just be for three or four hours-”
Tessa grimaced. “How about this: drop me off at the Library of Congress. I’ll hang out in the main reading room. Cell phones aren’t allowed in there so Paul can’t call me. And it’s the world’s most secure library. They guard it better than anything in DC except maybe the Capitol and the White House.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
“Whatever.” She propped herself up on one elbow. “Besides, if I see him anywhere I’ll just tell a police officer that he’s stalking me and then call you. Come on, don’t make me go shopping. How’s your arm, by the way?”
“My arm is fine, and going shopping wouldn’t be that…”
Actually, the more I thought about it, the more I found myself considering her request to go to the library. In contrast to the mall, which was at least a fifteen minute drive from the command post, the Library of Congress was just down the street, so I’d be close. And Tessa would certainly be more protected in there than in public with Brineesha.
“All right, you can go to the Library of Congress. But we need to get moving. Get dressed. We leave in fifteen minutes.”
I stepped into the hall, cancelled with Brineesha, and went to collect my notes and laptop.
The scavengers had arrived sometime in the middle of the night. Rats, she guessed, but the way her head was positioned she hadn’t been able to see them clearly enough to be certain. They had bitten her ankles, chewed on the flesh next to the straps that held her down. She’d tried to scream, but gagged; she couldn’t even do that. All night she’d wrestled unsuccessfully to get free but had only managed to loosen the dirt around her, which might have been what attracted the rodents-the ripe smell that seeped out from the body beneath her. At least, now in the daylight, they’d left her alone. But her strength was gone, wasted in her useless efforts to get free. Her courage had died, her tears were used up, and now she was lying flat against the putrid corpse, exhausted. Cold. Broken. She had become again that fragile little girl, trembling under a bed on a night in May, praying to a silent God. She hadn’t prayed since that night, hadn’t ventured to believe God was there to listen. But now, with no other recourse left, she prayed. However, this time she was not asking for anyone’s life but for her own death. For a quicker and more merciful release from the terror of all that had befallen her. Death. For herself and her child. Yet even in this, the Almighty offered her only silence in reply.